Facebook Justice: Fighting Crime with Facebook

Stupid criminals who love to brag about their crimes aren’t new, but add social networking to the mix and police have a new tool to bust them. It’s a new kind of justice … Facebook justice!

Asylum has a nifty post about the 6 crimes solved by the popular social networking website. For example:

Lesson #1: If you spray paint a special tag all around town, you might not want to brand it to your Facebook page.

We totally get the need to broadcast talents to friends on Facebook — that’s what it’s for, right? But unless you’re Banksy, your masterful tags probably won’t go over too well with the feds. That’s why, when specific tags were appearing all over Winnipeg, officers received a tip directing them to Facebook, where they found the same designs on an 18-year-old’s page.

Lesson #2: If you get caught on surveillance camera, just because you don’t have a mug shot on file doesn’t mean your face isn’t already out there for the finding.

Smile! … Or not. The Queenstown police of southern New Zealand nabbed their first Facebook crook after they caught a good shot of a burglar looking directly at the security camera after removing his mask. Quickly after posting the shot to their two-month-old page, tipsters sent suggestions and they identified the 21-year-old thief.

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